N.H.’s Brotherhood of White Warriors Part 2: Growth

BOWW's roots grew as inmates were dispersed throughout the prison system following several fights that broke out at the Berlin prison.

(JOHN TULLY / Monitor staff)

Theresa Gilman, 74, of Brentwood, visits the grave of her son, Anthony Renzzulla on Tuesday morning, November 26, 2013, exactly two years after his death in 2011. An inmate at Concord prison serving time for forging a $400 check and possessing drugs, Renzzulla's beaten body was found "lying on an exterior corridor outside pod 2B...on the second level of the housing facility," according to a state police affidavit. On July 26, 2011, he was a month away from being paroled when he was allegedly attacked by two BOWW members who learned, according to court records, Renzzulla had been snitching on them. Following the attack, he spent three weeks in a coma and another 16 weeks on life support at Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center in Greenfield.

(JOHN TULLY / Monitor staff)

The last drawing in a sketch-book belonging to Anthony Renzzulla. The book was given to his mother, Theresa Gilman, 74, of Brentwood, after Renzzulla's death in 2011. An inmate at Concord prison serving time for forging a $400 check and possessing drugs, Renzzulla's beaten body was found "lying on an exterior corridor outside pod 2B...on the second level of the housing facility," according to a state police affidavit. On July 26, 2011, he was a month away from being paroled when he was allegedly attacked by two BOWW members who learned, according to court records, Renzzulla had been snitching on them. Following the attack, he spent three weeks in a coma and another 16 weeks on life support at Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center in Greenfield.

(JOHN TULLY / Monitor staff)

Theresa Gilman, 74, of Brentwood, visits the grave of her son, Anthony Renzzulla on Tuesday morning, November 26, 2013, exactly two years after his death in 2011. An inmate at Concord prison serving time for forging a $400 check and possessing drugs, Renzzulla's beaten body was found "lying on an exterior corridor outside pod 2B...on the second level of the housing facility," according to a state police affidavit. On July 26, 2011, he was a month away from being paroled when he was allegedly attacked by two BOWW members who learned, according to court records, Renzzulla had been snitching on them. Following the attack, he spent three weeks in a coma and another 16 weeks on life support at Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center in Greenfield.

(JOHN TULLY / Monitor staff)

Made with a pen, a fan motor, a toothbrush, dental floss and using a paperclip as the needle, tattoo guns and tattoos are sometimes associated with prison gangs. It was confiscated at the Merrimack County House of Corrections in Boscawen, New Hampshire.

(JOHN TULLY / Monitor staff)

A letter ending with "Hail Victory" is part of a training kit at the Merrimack County House of Corrections in Boscawen.(JOHN TULLY / Monitor staff)

Boots from Aryan Wear were confiscated at the time of booking at the Merrimack County House of Corrections in Boscawen, New Hampshire.

(JOHN TULLY / Monitor staff)

Drugs including tobacco and pills are often wrapped up and smuggled through an incoming inmate's anal cavity, some of which is seized through searches and confiscated at the Merrimack County House of Corrections in Boscawen, New Hampshire.

(JOHN TULLY / Monitor staff)

Drugs are often packaged in balloons and ingested as a way to smuggle them in to the prison. These were confiscated at the Merrimack County House of Corrections in Boscawen, New Hampshire.

Within months of forming in late 2005, the Brotherhood of White Warriors had spread its roots inside the New Hampshire correctional system. By 2008, it was the state’s fastest-growing prison gang, according to estimates from officials. Three years on, in 2011, the FBI added BOWW to a list of known criminal groups that posed a threat in the state.

As the group expanded, prison authorities struggled to keep pace. They devoted more resources to tracking BOWW and other known gangs, acquiring new technology, providing enhanced training for security staff and improving communication with prison and law enforcement officials in neighboring states.

Eradicating gang activity was never the goal, said Tim Coulombe, a state prison investigator and gang expert. Managing it was.

But with BOWW in play, that was becoming increasingly difficult. Not only was the group growing in stature, it was also beginning to distance itself from its original focus around protection and personal growth, officials said.

As founders were either paroled or shipped to facilities out of state, younger, more profit-seeking inmates with street gang experience stepped in. Drug use among members became more rampant, as did extortion, officials said.

Violence was at times severe and targeted. By 2011, a feeble 44-year-old inmate who BOWW leaders allegedly believed to be a snitch was dead, more than a year after being brutally beaten by two suspected members.

In effect, Coulombe said, BOWW was walking the path that so many prison gangs before it had traveled: evolving into the very entity it had been created to stop.

“They turn into and start doing those actions that they had been protecting themselves from,” he said. “Which spurs up other groups. It’s a revolving door.”

Daily routines

Created by white inmates in the Berlin prison, BOWW grew early on through a combination of targeted recruitment, rising clout and opportune conditions. When it was founded, New Hampshire prisons were dominated by Hispanic gang members, Coulombe said. White prisoners, by contrast, lacked a sizable, organized presence.

The group built its reputation in part through daily routine. It established rigid workout schedules, Coulombe said, and members exercised publicly and in unison, conveying a message of strength, discipline and preparation. Members were directed to study, avoid drugs and respect the corrections staff.

Many of the recruiting methods remain in place today and are similar to those used by other gangs, Coulombe said. Prospective members are screened: sex offenders and anyone suspected of cooperating with law enforcement are barred from the group.

“The general consensus is (sex offenses are) not . . . I don’t want to say an ‘honorable crime,’ but it’s a crime that’s looked down upon in the inmate population,” Coulombe said.

The shakedown process is common in the state’s prisons and jails, Coulombe said, and is not tied to gangs. When a new inmate arrives, he is often approached by one or more established inmates and ordered to show his records. Those are then used to determine whether the newcomers can be recruited as gang members or extorted for money, goods or drug smuggling.

Gangs wield particular influence because of their size, Coulombe said, and their leaders often use that to promise protection to those extorted.

Coulombe and Lt. Lenny O’Keefe, the training coordinator at Merrimack County jail, said extortion is hard to monitor because it’s so subtle. A vulnerable inmate may “pay rent” to the other inmates in his housing unit with money or with more mundane items such as the potato chips or cake that come with meals, O’Keefe said. Nearly everything has increased value in prison.

Money exchanges are done indirectly and are therefore next to impossible to track, Coulombe and O’Keefe said. Inmates who pay rent or money for smuggled drugs do it by asking family members to transfer funds to the gang members’ contacts on the outside.

“A lot of stuff happens through family members and associates on the outside,” Coulombe said. “Have your brother give it to my brother.”

The money comes back to the gang through various channels. Contacts can put the money on gang members’ phone cards or in their inmate accounts. They may use the money to buy drugs and smuggle it into the prison, or hold it until a member’s release.

Exchanges commonly involve drugs, Coulombe said. A prescription pill that sells on the street for $80 can be quartered and sold for four times that in prison, O’Keefe said. Tobacco is similarly valuable.

Drugs and other contraband often arrive by mail or in body cavities, or it’s picked up at a drop-off site and transported in by a work-release prisoner, Coulombe said. Last year in Berlin, a former inmate was caught tossing drugs and a hunting knife over a fence and into the prison yard, just two weeks after his release. He was convicted and has since returned to prison.

Efforts to keep up

By 2008, the state Corrections Department had begun to catch up with BOWW and other gangs it was tracking. It sent Coulombe to Berlin and focused his attention on gang activity alone. Correctional officers were taught new techniques to detect and track suspected members, such as monitoring tattoos and routinely updating an online database.

At the center of the campaign was a new tagging system, which remains in place today, Coulombe said. Adopted from Rockingham County, it assigns points to inmates for interactions they have with known gang members. When a prisoner reaches 10 points, he becomes a labeled gang member.

The Merrimack County jail, in Boscawen, uses a similar model. Inmates earn one point for having contact with a known gang member and two points if a law enforcement source outside the jail identifies them as a gang member. A gang tattoo brings eight points; possessing membership paperwork carries nine.

No one activity is enough to validate an inmate as a member, O’Keefe said, including self-identification.

At the jail, officials photograph new inmates’ tattoos and compare them with a chart of known gang symbols, including BOWW’s, an Iron Cross with the group’s initials down the center and prison bars on the sides. Arrivals are also given a gang questionnaire, on which many confirm their membership, O’Keefe said.

A photograph of Matthew Peters taken at the jail, one of the two suspects in what the police describe as a gang-related armed robbery in Concord earlier this year, shows a slightly altered version of the BOWW tattoo – “NH” is added to the design – on his forearm. The words “White Warrior” are inked across his stomach. The other suspect, Daniel Boothby, bears the BOWW tattoo on his chest, next to an Iron Eagle. The word “Warrior” spans his upper back.

Inmates who don’t come in with a tattoo often get one inside, in violation of facility rules, using makeshift ink guns built from motors inside cassette players and other electronics, Coulombe said.

Online advances have also helped prison officials monitor gang activity, giving them easy access to information from law enforcement and prison officials in other states. Since the Concord robbery in February, prison and jail officials have begun routinely sharing names and details about BOWW with the Concord Police Department and officials in Sullivan County, from where many leaders and members hail.

But technology has also played into gang members’ hands, Coulombe said. Contacts on the outside can easily pull up details about new and existing inmates by searching their names on the internet, through either the prison’s inmate locator or a search engine.

“Law enforcement has really changed in the last few years,” Coulombe said. “These non-law-abiding citizens are doing the same, and they’ve been doing it a lot longer than law enforcement has.”

BOWW ‘on the map’

Extorting rent and forcing vulnerable inmates to smuggle drugs are among the most prevalent problems for corrections officials. But assaults by and between gangs are a threat, too.

Prison officials try to protect vulnerable inmates by relocating them to a different unit, but it’s not a guarantee. And it’s impossible to separate all gang members from others or to keep them under 24-hour surveillance. The only maximum security facility is in Concord, called the secure housing unit, or SHU.

“We don’t put somebody in SHU just because they’re a gang member,” Coulombe said. “Our SHU would be full.”

BOWW’s violent behavior peaked July 26, 2010, according to the police, when two members living in the same medium-security housing unit in Concord fatally beat fellow inmate Anthony Renzzulla.

Leaders believed Renzzulla was snitching on them, according to a police affidavit.

The case is still pending trial. But records suggest gang allegiance played a significant role in the attack. Randall Chapman, then a BOWW member, had tried to defend Renzzulla before the attack but followed an order from a superior, Frank Philbrook, to clean the bloodied scene, the affidavit said. One of the alleged attackers, William Edic, apologized to Chapman about Renzzulla but said he too had to follow orders.

Renzzulla spent three weeks in a coma and an additional 16 months on life support at Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center in Greenfield, before succumbing to his injuries Nov. 26, 2011.

Neither Edic, Chapman nor Philbrook returned requests for comment.

BOWW leaders later issued a hit, known as a TOS or “terminate on sight,” on Chapman because they believed he was cooperating with investigators, according to a police affidavit.

Following orders is inscribed in BOWW’s “bylaws,” a copy of which was recovered by jail officials and provided to the Monitor by O’Keefe.

“Aid and assist all comrades, right or wrong,” it reads. “BOWW comes before all.” The rules aren’t unique, Coulombe said; most gangs have some sort of paramilitary-style structure and require that members follow orders and keep quiet. According to a police detective, BOWW’s pecking order begins with Council, Commission of the Council and BOWW lord, and descends from there to general, captain, lieutenant, sergeant, warrior, patch holder and prospect.

“You could almost have a template and sub the words out for each group,” he said.

The authorities believe Renzzulla’s death, if not outrightly ordered by BOWW, was at least viewed as an opportunity by some members to publicize their brand.

After stomping and beating Renzzulla to death, according to the affidavit, Edic and Thomas Milton, the other alleged BOWW member charged in the homicide, told Chapman the attack would “put BOWW on the map.”

A life lost

Renzzulla had a troubled history of his own. His 74-year-old mother, Theresa Gilman, said he’d been in and out of prison most of his life, usually for violating his parole or probation.

She said Renzzulla suffered from back pain and walked with a cane, and had been a month away from parole when he was assaulted. He was serving time for a forged $400 check, which he had swiped from a friend’s daughter, and for possessing drugs.

“He wasn’t an angel by any means, because if he was, he wouldn’t have been in prison,” Gilman said. “But he had a lot of good things about him that people loved.”

The attack on Renzzulla had been set as a trap, according to the police affidavit. He was lured to a room under the guise that another inmate using intravenous drugs needed help finding a vein.

Gilman learned of the beating in a telephone call from a prison employee. Renzzulla was in a coma for three months and then on life support until his death.

Gilman spent the months in between at his bedside, combing his hair, playing him music on the radio, praying.

“There was no response,” she said.

Gilman considered having Renzzulla removed from life support but couldn’t work up the courage. On Nov. 26, 2011, a staff member called and told her his organs were failing on their own. She and her husband rushed to the hospital. Renzzulla was dead by the time they arrived.

“This is what (Renzzulla’s assailants) did to me. They ruined me,” said Gilman, who visits her son’s gravesite often. “Not only him but me, too. My heart goes out to him all the time. I don’t think it would be as bad if he hadn’t died that way. It’s very hard to forget.”

(Jeremy Blackman can be reached at 369-3319, jblackman@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @JBlackmanCM. Annmarie Timmins can be reached at 369-3323 or atimmins@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @annmarietimmins.)

Slang words are in bold. Put on Front Street – To be insulted or disrespected in a way that must be answered. Also known as “called out.” TOS – “Terminate On Site.” A directive used by BOWW to punish someone for snitching or otherwise undermining the gang, according to prison officials. A TOS was allegedly placed on Randall Chapman in …

William Edic, 31, did not adopt his white supremacist views after he entered the Concord state prison. He arrived at an earlier stop, the Merrimack County jail, wearing “Aryanwear” boots, inked with the word “skinhead” on his throat and a history of violence toward foreigners and gays. Edic is now facing second-degree murder charges for the 2010 fatal beating of …

Unlike the other inmate charged in the death of inmate Anthony Renzzulla, Thomas Milton, 30, did not have a history of assaults when he came to prison. He committed burglaries, riding from one house to the next on a bicycle in one case. Milton, 30, along with inmate William Edic, was charged in June with second-degree murder of Anthony Renzzulla, …

Frank Philbrook, 44, of Newport has not been charged in the 2010 fatal assault of inmate Anthony Renzzulla, but witnesses have told investigators he directed it and the cleanup with the sensitivity of a drill sergeant. He was a “high-ranking” official in the Brotherhood of White Warriors at the time, according to a police affidavit. Gesturing to Renzzulla’s blood, smeared …

Randall “Pitbull” Chapman, as he’s identified in court records, broke the law of the Brotherhood of White Warriors in 2010 while serving a prison sentence for armed robbery. Now the former BOWW member is serving his parole out of state because gang leadership has ordered Chapman be “terminated on sight” for helping law enforcement, according to court records. Chapman, 36, …

If we know this about these people, why don't we simply segregate them, put them in solitary or chain them in their cells with no contact to the outside. Period!

canadianbacon wrote:

12/09/2013

Pure white trash. These guys make me sick to be white. If they could stand up for themselves they would not need to formulate a gang for protection. These guys all lack formal education, have severe learning disabilities and have little to no job skills in order to ever keep any type of employment in order to remain out of prison. I agree this is a bad series and is semi-glorifying these degenerates to people whom have no concept of the penal system and is displayng these losers as if they were strong, proud men fighting for a noble cause and are would be martyrs. Beyond pathetic. You want a real story: The real Aryan Brotherhood in California and the federal prison system during the 1970's and 80's.

Rrogerdodger wrote:

12/09/2013

Well, let's face it. there have been white supremacist problems here in Concord for a rather long time, and the worst of the problems were not predominantly at the prison, but at numerous other institutions around town. I do believe that law enforcement agencies are much more responsive to this type of activity then they have previously been; and of course civil rights activists have been rather vocal here in New Hampshire since at least the early 1960's.

cityonthelakes wrote:

12/09/2013

The prison system is wacked and so is The Concord Monitor for printing this trash.

Hunter_Dan wrote:

12/09/2013

Why do you consider it "trash" for the Monitor to report on this violent, racist gang activity in the NH penal system. Sounds like a news story to me. Perhaps it . . . how shall I say this . . . "hits a little too close to home" for you?

Collie wrote:

12/09/2013

By printing this story as you call it, you are giving these gang members status which is undeserved. These individuals love the attention they are getting. They did the crime, should pay the time, with no recognition or attention what-so-ever!!!! The penal system needs to get rid of the bleeding heart liberals and put in some tougher discipline.

Collie wrote:

12/09/2013

Anything that even smells of gang activity, should be shut down within the prison system. Who is running the place the inmates?? Why are you glorifying this bunch of thugs by giving them three days of coverage, taking up most of the front part of the paper. You basically are condoning their criminal activity, which is not about protecting the White Race. Give me a break!! This series, "bad choice"!!!!